I'm sorry, but you DO NOT NEED 8GB of RAM for a Windows install. I've ran Windows 7 SP1 64bit (nothing removed or slipstream) and now I'm running Windows 8.1.. Again nothing removed or slip streamed. I'm using 4 cards ( 1x 280X, 3 R9 270's) and I have maxed out my cards the best of my ability and what my cards will handle (due to poor ASIC quality, and I'm assuming voltage leakage due to GPU load.
There is no solid 100% that you need 8GB of ram, It's all He said She said. I'm telling you, If you are having issues with mining Scrypt-N, please do post in here. I've been messing with this algorithm for 3 months now, It is picky, but it isn't rocket science to calculate and figure out.
Each card, each system is different. You may get lucky and a copy+paste configuration may work for you, or you may crash your drivers, or 1 card is acting a bit off.. Why is that? When it comes to this, during production Elpida, Samsung, and Hynix don't 'cherry pick' memory chips (Which Scrypt-N is very memory intensive as many of you know) so the quality isn't 100% there.
Cherry picking memory is very popular for RAM, benchmarking, specially when D9 chips were the hit with Crucial Tracers 2x1GB sticks for synthetic benchmarking.
Anyways back on topic, what I do for every mining rig, I tell people
- Disable Aero (or set to Max Performance)
- Disable all unnecessary services that don't need to be running on your rig (If you don't know what to disable, check out
http://www.blackviper.com/ You can learn a thing or two.
Voltage tolerance, voltage leakage are common issues. Just because you set your cards to 1.112V like I do for my 280X doesn't mean its gonna load at that voltage, thats idle voltage, my 280X loads at iirc 1.048V or somewhere around that area, I forget.
Clean Voltage is the most important part, what I mean is a QUALITY Power Supply. Just because a power Supply from Joe Dirt is 800 W doesn't mean its the same quality as a 800 W from Bruce Willis. (Ya I got bored)
It's the simple things you gotta take into account if your having issues getting the hash rate that you think you should be getting. Ya my 280X can get 350KH/s like others, but due to the cards ASIC quality, and voltage tolerance, I can only get 332-333KH/s. I'm perfectly fine with that.
This post was not intended to bash anyone's experience with mining, I'm just putting information out there that members may not know, and wanna help out fellow Vertans. I've noticed lots of new miners know Nothing of computer rigs, important parts and the internals of everything, they put it together and hope for the best. Gotta do research lads, and you'll be much better off.